Skimping on DNA tests

December 29, 2001

To ordinary working people and taxpayers, $750,000 is big money. But measured against the Justice Department's budget of more than $20 billion, it's peanuts. And in the context of the $2 trillion federal budget, it barely qualifies as a rounding error.

But if you happened to be an inmate in a penitentiary, wrongly convicted but unable to pay for DNA tests that might exonerate you, just a tiny bit of $750,000 could be the difference between freedom and imprisonment, or maybe between life and death.

If you were a prosecutor looking to dispel the last shadow of doubt over a controversial conviction, a little of that $750,000 for DNA tests could be the difference between diminished or enhanced public support of the local criminal justice system, between public confidence that a culprit has been caught and public fear that a criminal remains on the loose.

That's why it was distressing this week to learn that the Justice Department won't be funding grants for such testing of incarcerated prisoners this year. It's difficult to argue with the purpose for which the money--up to $750,000--will be used: to identify victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and develop methods for identifying mass casualties in the future.

But it's hard to believe that, in a budget the size of our federal government's, these two worthy purposes have to be pitted against each other. Especially when the sum involved is so modest.

Rarely does a week go by nowadays without a news report of another case in which DNA testing rescued someone from imprisonment after a wrongful conviction. Less loudly trumpeted, but no less important, are the cases in which DNA provides crucial, unshakeable evidence of an imprisoned person's guilt.

So widely respected and accepted has this technology become that it's hard to believe its reliability was a matter of serious contention during O.J. Simpson's infamous murder trial less than a decade ago.

And yet, despite its power and utility, it often goes unused in cases where an incarcerated person can make a plausible claim of innocence. The reason, quite simply, is cost. Depending on the sophistication of the testing, costs can range from as little as $100 to several thousands.

Indigent defendants, who by and large are the ones who end up convicted and imprisoned, generally cannot afford such testing. A federal grant program would have allowed at least some of them the opportunity to do so.

The grant program was being considered as a research initiative of the National Institute of Justice. Originally slated for $500,000, it was to have been bumped up to $750,000. And then, Sept. 11 happened.

A Justice spokesman pointed out that the budget still contains lots of money for DNA testing in other contexts. But none of those other programs would do exactly what the NIJ project would have: give imprisoned people a shot at proving their innocence.

There ought to be room for that in the budget. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft ought to make room.